


play with fire

by kay_okay



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_okay/pseuds/kay_okay
Summary: Just talk to me,Callum whispers, pleading voice buried in the soft hair at the crown of Ben’s head. His fingers don’t stop their gentle tracks. Already fast asleep, Ben doesn’t hear him.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 8
Kudos: 130





	play with fire

**Author's Note:**

> title lifted from ["play with fire" by vance joy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zT2-ad3810)
> 
> this is my first time posting in this fandom! please be gentle. these two have put us all on an emotional rollercoaster the last year haven't they? 
> 
> thank you so much to cait [@commonemergency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/) for looking it over!

_and i guess i knew it  
_ _this whole time  
_ _but these old feelings  
_ _they make me blind_

  
  
  
  


“Texting your other boyfriend?”

Ben jumps and looks away from his phone. Callum’s voice is teasing, dimpled smile pointed down at Ben as he sets down their pints. The Vic is loud and crowded, they’d only just managed to snag a table in the front corner near the stage where karaoke is getting set up. 

“Yeah, you should see the things we chat about after you’ve gone to bed, mate,” Ben jokes back, locking his phone quickly and placing it face down on the table. “Would make you blush blood red all the way up to your adorable ears.” Ben lunges when Callum sits next to him, pressing his mouth against said ears, Callum chuckling.

They sit in companionable silence for a few beats, sipping their pints and watching Mick and Linda set up the microphone stand, rolling out the little monitor on wheels out in front of it.

“Everything all right?” Callum asks quietly. Hesitantly. He reaches for Ben, the soft juncture of skin between shoulder and jaw. It feels tense there, and Callum strokes his thumb across the tightened muscle. Ben doesn’t seem to notice, flips his phone over again, pressing at the buttons to open his texts.

“Oh, yeah,” Ben says, locking it and turning it over. “Just checking the time. Jay and Lola are late again. As usual.”

There’s no heat behind the words, and Ben takes a deep swig from his pint. He stares straight, zoned out from all the Vic’s hubbub and noise. Callum lets his fingers drop, watches Ben from the corner of his eye, unnoticed.

Callum’s not an idiot. Ben’s been off for days now. Waking up in the middle of the night to pace in the lounge — if he even gets to sleep at all, never being more than an arm’s reach from his phone. He jumps every time he hears the text tone, has been miles away from every conversation. 

Callum tries again, slides his palm gently across Ben’s thigh to take his hand. When Ben turns his head, Callum squeezes their fingers together. 

“Ben,” he starts tentatively, “If there’s something you — ”

He doesn’t get to finish, Jay and Lola crashing through the crowd and down at their table, all big coats and scarves and shaking fresh snow off them and onto the floor. Callum’s hand falls when Ben stands to greet them, pressing kisses to Lola’s cheeks and pulling Jay in for a hug.

Callum only hesitates for a moment before he stands to do the same. Now isn’t a good time, anyway.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Toast?”

Ben holds out the tiny plate, three toasted slices of bread lined up neatly on it — two with butter spread on top, one with jam. Callum’s favourite.

“Cheers,” Callum says, smiling sleepily and taking the plate. Hot coffee with milk steaming in a mug is already at his place at the table as he sits, reaching for it with one hand and yawning against the other. “Get up early again?”

Ben smiles, bends over to press a kiss to Callum’s lips when he sits down. His glasses press into the bridge of Callum’s nose. “Early bird gets the worm and all that, right?” 

“Sometimes the worm’s boyfriend would like a lie-in and extra cuddles when it’s the weekend and neither worm has to be at work,” Callum comments, mouth full of crispy toasted bread and salty butter. He swallows, using his free hand to wind around Ben’s waist. “I don’t think I’ve woken up with you in almost a week.” 

“Oh, my poor little Callum,” Ben teases, pulling the mug from Callum’s hand and setting it down on the table. Callum slides his chair back a little, Ben crowding in and sitting on his lap. “Deprived of his weekend cuddles and forced to eat an incredible breakfast spread cooked for him by his loving boyfriend,” Ben clucks a _tsk-tsk_ and rings his arms around Callum’s shoulders, making himself comfortable. “Whatever shall he do?”

“I know you didn’t just refer to toast and jam with some half-warm coffee as ‘an incredible breakfast’,” Callum smirks, lifts his hands in air quotes. With Ben closer than he’s been in days and away from his phone, he lets his hands paw everywhere, one sliding up his back and the other gripping skinfuls at his hip. 

Ben doesn’t make him wait, smiling into the kisses he presses against his boyfriend’s mouth, warm and sweet and tasting like the caramel flavour Callum puts in his coffee. Callum lets his palm rest at the cap of Ben’s shoulder, kneading into it when he deepens the kiss for more.

“Missed you,” he sighs into Ben’s open mouth, and Ben hums an affirmative sound, head tipped back when Callum trails hot kisses to his neck. It feels right again, thrumming skin and synced-up hearts and fingers that fit together like puzzle pieces. Something slots into place inside Callum, a comfortable wholeness he’d been needing so desperately. 

“Cal,” Ben cries out softly, scratches soft through close-shorn strands of hair at the back of Callum’s neck, pulls his head closer. Ben’s eyes close, long lashes against flushed cheeks, he lets himself feel it all. “Missed you too.”

Ben reclines fully, back pressing into hard tabletop, his arm shooting out to grip at the edge. He knocks into Callum’s half-empty mug, hearing it clang against the porcelain of the plate like piano keys. Callum stands and pushes his chair back, lifting Ben’s hips and laying him flat on the table. He pushes Ben’s thighs apart, presses into the space between them to crane his body over Ben and keep kissing him.

He’s big and tall and imposing and Ben’s heart rate triples as he reaches both hands up to bring Callum closer to him by his shirt. Callum answers with maddening kisses, deep and wet and swallowing down Ben’s throaty hums. He lifts a hand to the knot in Ben’s dressing gown, undoes it in one tug and Ben takes his cue, sighing gratefully when it opens and he can wind his legs around Callum’s middle. 

“This is new,” Ben comments, and Callum can hear the grin in his voice. “Does me in the kitchen do it for ya? Or is it a food kink I didn’t know about?”

Callum’s too busy for a witty response, pressing sucking kisses across Ben’s bare chest and getting a hand past the elastic in his pants. Ben keens, sarcastic teasing tone dropped in an instant, arching his back against the table. He digs his heels into Callum’s strong thighs, and when Callum finally gets a hand around him to stroke properly, Ben pulls at the back of his neck to bring his face back up, has to kiss him. Has to show Callum how much he loves this, loves them, regardless of everything else going on. 

Callum holds himself up with one arm, bends at the elbow to lean further down into Ben’s space. They kiss like it’s the last one they’ll ever have, deep and starved for affection and craving each other, Ben’s fingers threaded into Callum’s soft hair and tugging him impossibly closer. Ben plants a foot on the forgotten chair pushed back from the table, tips his hips up against Callum’s and drinks in the soft groans Callum lets loose into his mouth.

The sound of Ben’s mobile ringing on the kitchen counter behind them shatters the quiet. Callum feels the break, feels Ben tense up immediately, his head rising from the table and eyes flying open behind his glasses.

“Callum, I — ” Ben starts, and his hands come up to Callum’s shoulders, stopping his movements, “I should — ”

Callum stares down at him, equal parts confused, annoyed, disappointed, angry. In all those emotions he can’t find any words, so he just locks his eyes to Ben’s. Hovers above him, breath held, forcing Ben’s hand.

The mobile keeps chiming in the distance, the sound of it seemingly getting louder the longer it rings. Ben’s eyes track back and forth between Callum’s, his expression stricken, pained. Callum waits.

Finally, Ben breaks their gaze, drops his eyes away from Callum’s and slides off the table, leaving Callum behind him. Hair mussed, shirt wrinkled from Ben’s fists, mouth pink and plumped and breathing gone shallow, Callum leans his palms against the tabletop, thinks he can feel the heat Ben left behind. 

Callum can’t look at him, just hears Ben pick the phone up off the counter, and a soft “Dad?” into the receiver.

Ben goes back into the bedroom and shuts the door. Standing there in the middle of the kitchen, feeling more foolish than he’s ever felt, Callum’s not sure how much time passes. His mind reels with questions, ones he feels like he’ll never get the answers to. 

Callum sees his hoodie draped over the kitchen chair from yesterday’s run. He snatches it up and tugs it on, goes to the front door and pulls on his socks and trainers. 

When Ben comes out of the bedroom, Callum’s already gone.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They don’t talk about it. Ben has lunch for the both of them when Callum gets home and he’s in good spirits, like nothing happened. He tells Callum a story about Lexi over sandwiches and tea and Ben presses a kiss against his cheek when Callum compliments the food. 

Callum misses him so much that he doesn’t bring anything up. He lets the feelings go, pushes them farther inside his chest until they’re barely there. Simmering. Waiting. 

A week later, they share Chinese over an old episode of _Extras_ on Netflix after Callum loses his nerve to confront Ben about the blood on his shirt. He puts it behind his mind, placated in a way because Ben doesn’t look at his phone once during dinner. He’s happy and engaged, cheeks pinked and eyes sparkling as he jokes along with the episode’s plot line that Callum long stopped paying attention to. 

When they’ve had their fill of stir-fried noodles with chicken, enough pork dumplings to feed an army, they lean back into their spots on the couch. Ben wiggles his way back under Callum’s arm, and Callum hears him exhale softly when he gets a hand working through Ben’s hair again. 

“What d’you got planned for tomorrow?” Ben asks him from below, voice sleepy and cheek pressed into Callum’s chest.

“Donno,” Callum answers. “No funerals or nothin’, Jay’s got the day off to help Lola shop for Lexi’s Christmas presents. ‘Spose it’ll be quiet.”

“ _Dead_ quiet, eh?” Ben smirks, and Callum tweaks his ear, makes Ben yelp.

“Ha, ha,” Callum answers. “What ‘bout you?”

“Donno,” Ben echoes. “This ‘n’ that.” 

Ben goes silent. The only sounds in the empty flat are the low telly, the slow glide of Ben’s palm against the fabric at Callum’s thigh, the drag of his fingers across Ben’s scalp. 

Callum could ask him now. When he’s blissed out and boneless like this, piled up next to Callum’s heart and wrapped in warmth, some of the rough exterior chips away. Callum counts himself lucky that he gets to see this part of Ben, this part Pam reminded Callum of that day in the Vic, that Kathy knows is there, too, tries to tell Ben he can embrace and still be himself. 

They hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on while they ate, so it’s still dim inside, glow of fairy lights warming them and setting a technicolour holiday haze about the room. Callum’s eyes have glassed over as they unfocus, and he turns his face inward.

 _Just talk to me,_ Callum whispers, pleading voice buried in the soft hair at the crown of Ben’s head. His fingers don’t stop their gentle tracks. Already fast asleep, Ben doesn’t hear him. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Callum’s eyes are blurry when he wakes, but he hears the unmistakable sound of Ben’s voice whimpering next to him. 

He rolls to his other side, Ben on his side next to him and clearly having a nightmare. His brow is furrowed, chest rising and falling in distress as he shakes his head in his sleep. Ben keeps muttering something, _no, no, no,_ over and over. 

Callum thinks somewhere far-off in his sleep-addled brain that you’re not supposed to wake a person having a nightmare, but he can’t take watching Ben like this. He runs a hand softly across the sheets, holds Ben’s clammy hand in his own, the other stroking gently up his arm. 

“Ben,” Callum calls quietly. “Ben, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.” 

Ben stops murmuring but still trembles, so Callum reaches over his shoulder to get him on his back. He can see now from this angle the line of dewy perspiration against his hairline, the flush of red running down his cheeks through his bare chest. So many nights from the past few months shutter through Callum’s mind like flash cards, waking up to Ben sleeping calmly next to him, face relaxed and serene. It’s such a stark contrast that it scares him a little, and Callum shakes him gently, grips at Ben’s clammy hand. “Ben, babe, wake up.”

Ben gasps as his eyes shoot open, filled with unshed tears and darting wildly around the room. He looks like an animal cornered, scared to death of the slaughter and cowering. 

“Ben, it’s me, you’re okay,” Callum lets himself get pulled in, Ben’s fingers clawing at him desperately, “It’s okay, it was a nightmare, you’re okay.”

He’s pressed against Callum’s chest, silence in the room but body shaking with the deep lungfuls of air Ben tries to catch. Callum brings the blanket up over Ben’s shoulder, holds the back of his neck and kneads gently, feels Ben wipe his eyes with his hand and wind it around Callum’s waist. 

“Sorry, it was just — It was real.” Ben’s voice is choked off, and Callum feels Ben’s racing heart through the palms he glides across Ben’s bare back. “They had Lexi and I couldn’t —”

He can’t finish the sentence and Callum holds him. It feels like a repeat of earlier, so many questions he wants to ask. 

“Ben, I love you and I can’t stand to see you like this, please just talk to me and tell me what’s going on.”

Callum says it fast, like he can’t contain it any longer, like it’s been building up for days. Which it has.

Ben stares, laid next to Callum on the bed like he’s been for so many nights now. After everything with Whit, Callum thought he was destined to never share a restful night’s sleep with anyone. These past few months have felt like an impossible dream, one that Callum was sure he’d never see come to life. Now he’s afraid he’s watching it die.

Without another word, Ben starts climbing out of bed.

“What are you doing?” Callum asks, the long line of Ben’s back bending over the side of the bed as he reaches for his glasses on the bedside table. “Ben.”

“Leave it,” Ben mumbles. “Why did you have to say that?”

“Are you joking? Ben, I don’t understand —”

“You’re right, you _don’t_ understand Callum, you don’t get what kind of pressure I’m under —” Ben raises his voice, yanks the duvet back angrily and picks up his clothes piece by piece from the floor. 

“Pressure about what?” Callum shoots his hand out, connecting with Ben’s inner elbow, hanging on, “Why are you always on your phone? What are you always so worried about? Tell me what’s going on, I want to be there for you.” 

“What is your obsession with knowing what’s going on in my personal life? Is yours so boring you have to try to focus on mine?” Ben spits out.

“This isn’t you, I know you, you think I don’t but I do. Why are you fighting this? Fighting me?” Callum climbs out of bed too, wants nothing more than to rewind the last ten minutes and get back into their soft world where he didn’t feel like he was about to lose everything he loved. 

“Didn’t I tell you you couldn’t change who you were, Callum? That you could fight it but you’d never win? The same applies to me.” Ben raises his voice and every piece he picks up Callum rips from his hand. “The less you know, the better.” 

“That’s bollocks and you know it, you don’t have to do this.” 

“This is my family Callum, try and understand how much of a choice I _don’t_ actually have.” Ben pulls his socks from Callum’s hands and gets them on his feet. 

“Your dad has made you feel like you need to earn his love, like you’re not good enough to just have it, unconditionally,” Callum says, trying to reach out and take Ben’s arm as he tugs on his shoes. “But you’re a good person and you deserve it and what he’s doing to you ain’t love, Ben, it never was.”

Ben yanks his arm free of Callum’s grasp and whirls around, eyes hot and flashing and Callum knows instantly he’s hit a nerve. 

“You don’t know the _first thing_ about my dad, Callum,” Ben shouts, jabbing a finger into Callum’s chest, “So keep your psychoanalysis and your thoughts and your ideas to yourself because you’re not my therapist and I’m not paying you for your opinions.”

Callum dodges the hurt from the insult, knows there’s more important things to address before Ben is gone and he’s out of time. He reaches out again, a last ditch effort, fingers closing around the sleeve at Ben’s coat and tugging before he walks out of the bedroom. “So you're just going to leave? Because I told you I loved you and you got scared?”

Ben fastens the top button in his coat and turns, inches from Callum’s face. He studies him for a long time, eyes dark, mouth pulled tense into a tight line, voice low and quiet. 

“I ain’t scared of anything, Callum.” 

And Callum can’t pretend that doesn’t punch him in the gut, knock the air out of him, crack his heart right up the middle like a faultline, two tectonic plates that will grind away at each other trying to make it fit until there’s nothing left. So he gives himself a pass to let his voice waver when he calls across the room to Ben’s retreating form — 

“When we decided to be together, properly together, we promised we’d never lie to each other again.” In spite of himself, Callum wipes angrily at the tear on his cheek that’s pushed its way out, “We said we’d be honest.”

Ben doesn’t turn around, just hovers in the doorway of Callum’s bedroom. Callum thinks for a split second he’s not going to leave, that he’s going to change his mind. 

“I ain’t scared, Callum,” Ben repeats. It’s softer this time, resigned, and Callum has to turn away from the closing door, away from the sound of Ben walking out of his flat and onto the empty, winter street below. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s days before Callum even sees Ben again, let alone talks to him. He ignores Ben’s handful of texts and eventually they stop all together.

But Walford is small and he hears everything secondhand, all the drama with Phil and Sharon and Keanu and Louise and the whole lot of the Mitchell clan. He runs into Lola coming out of the Caf, luckily without Lexi — he’s not sure he could’ve painted on a convincing-enough smile that she wouldn’t see right through.

“Callum!” Lola cries, looking up from juggling a handful of shopping bags and her phone as she lets the Caf door close behind her. She looks pleased to see him at first, smiling and happy and bubbly as always. “How are you? Shit, sorry, of course you’re — I mean I know —”

Callum shakes his head, tries for a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s fine. I’m okay, thanks. You? Lexi?”

“We’re good, just out spending half my paycheck on Christmas presents, ain’t I?” She holds up her shopping bags, smiling. “Still ain’t done, either.”

Callum nods and they stand awkwardly together for a few seconds. They’re quiet, Christmas shoppers from the town hustling and bustling around them, market stall owners calling out to passers-by, Christmas music wafting through the air from windows and shopfronts. 

“I really am sorry,” Lola says. “Ben, he —” She cuts herself off, shaking her head in something that looks like disapproval. 

“He’s one of the best people I know, Callum. He fucks it up a lot and people give up on him because they think he’s not worth the fight. Trust me, I was there, too. But he’s worth it, I’m telling you.”

“I ain’t the one that gave up though, did I?” Callum asks, rhetorically. He doesn’t mean it any way towards her, but he still feels bad about the heat behind it. “Sorry, Lo.” 

Lola waves him off, assuring him it’s fine, but her face just looks more pained. Callum hates that he’s had this effect on her so he tries to exit as quickly as possible. He says his goodbyes, wishing her a happy Christmas and asking her to give Lexi a hug from him. Lola was always kind to him, and he doesn’t expect that to change just because things are different now.

She gets up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Her blonde hair bounces in its ponytail, and she tucks her mobile in the pocket of her pink puffy jacket before she lets him go.

“You’re the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time, Callum,” she tells him. Callum listens, her eyes soft and hopeful. “I wish he knew how to tell you that.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Ben catches him on Christmas Eve, walking towards the tube station in a hurry. He hadn’t seen Ben until he was right in front of him, pushing the Vic’s heavy door open and running into Callum’s path, breath coming out in little white puffs through the chilled December air.

“Please, just talk to me.”

“Ben, I can’t —”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” 

Ben looks desperate and perplexed, all at the same time. “Everything.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Callum scoffs, turns his head and Ben charges ahead — 

“Can’t you just believe me that it’s better if you’re not involved? This would ruin you, Callum —”

“Why not let me be the judge of what’s good for me, eh?” Callum raises his voice, and just as quick, drops it. Ben doesn’t answer him.

Callum sighs. He looks utterly exhausted, but he hitches his rucksack further up his shoulder and leans into Ben’s space. 

“Remember this?”

Callum slides one hand around the back of Ben’s neck as he tugs him in, dropping his lips to a soft kiss against Ben’s cheek. It’s a call back to a day so opposite to this harsh winter’s night — sunny, bright, warm with summer sun on their shoulders in the square. When Ben Mitchell had crash-landed into Callum’s life and turned it upside down, shaken up his world like an Etch-a-Sketch in the best possible way, passionate and intriguing and loving and without any regard for the inevitable collateral damage. 

Callum feels Ben’s cheek grow hot against his face, and he closes his eyes for the briefest of breaths before he pulls back. Ben’s looking up at Callum with eyes wide and shiny, hanging on his words and looking at him like he’d just strung the stars in the sky. He’s always been hypnotised where Callum’s concerned, a carryover habit from watching him out of the corner of his eye for so long when he was with Whit. He could practically feel the air vibrate every time Callum walked in a room. 

“Something changed that day. I knew it then, more than I knew anything else,” Callum whispers. His hand slides down, like Ben’s did that sunny afternoon in the square, grips against Ben’s cold fingers. “I knew you saw me and I knew how you felt.”

They’re so close together they’re sharing the same air. It’s thick with the feeling before it snows, sky midnight black and dotted in stars. Callum sees them in the reflection of Ben’s eyes and he closes his own tight, touches his cold forehead gently to Ben’s warm one. 

“I see you Ben, the real you. And I love you.” 

Ben doesn’t have it in him to answer. No acceptance, no denial, nothing. Callum takes a deep breath and lets go of all expectations. With it, he lets go of Ben altogether, stepping back and putting distance between them. 

“I’m going away for a bit,” Callum says. Ben’s heart jumps of its own accord in his chest, but Callum goes on, “I have a mate from the army spending Christmas alone in Brighton.” 

Ben looks like he wants to say something, even opens his mouth, but Callum cuts him off.

“I need time. You do, too.” 

He threads his other arm through the opposite handle on his rucksack. With nothing more to say, Callum reaches up and swipes at the moisture on Ben’s cheek. It’s chaste, borderline impersonal, and Ben feels his heart twist in his chest again at the lack of intimacy. 

Then, he’s gone. It feels like a death, like the life is sucked from his bones. The air feels colder around Ben and his mouth unglues itself to cry out before Callum is out of earshot —

_“Callum!”_

Ben's voice comes out thick and broken, his feet moving him toward Callum’s retreating form and hands balled up into fists at his sides. “Callum, I lied. I lied about everything.”

There’s a flash across Callum’s face, just for a moment. His eyes track to Ben’s, and Callum almost reaches out to embrace him, grateful for the truth and so unbelievably happy that all he wants to do is kiss the life back into them, go back into the Vic and share a couple pints. 

But he can’t. Callum fights every atom inside him, turns them around one by one until he can will his feet to keep walking towards the station. 

“I know you did,” Callum says. 

Ben lets him go this time. The image of him disappearing into the station the last one Ben lets himself see through glassy eyes before he shuts them tight, drawing his coat around himself, trying to will his breath back to a normal speed. The air presses in on him from all sides, bursting, destroying.

It starts to snow. It’s light at first, fat flakes falling in sprinkles and dusting the road delicately. It’s soft and quiet outside, everyone who’d normally be in the square tucked indoors and celebrating in warm flats and pubs and restaurants. 

Ben allows himself a few minutes to stay rooted in the road, snow falling around him and silhouetted in the triangle of a streetlamp. The flakes stick to his hair, the lapels of his coat, and melt against the the lines of eyelashes closed against his cheeks. 

Eventually, he feels the tremor of his phone in his coat pocket. Leaving the safety of the light, he walks into the dark road, answering the call. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kay_okays) and [tumblr](https://kay-okays.tumblr.com/) xoxo
> 
> thank you for all the nice things you say about my fics. <3


End file.
